The present invention relates to a monitoring system, devices forming part thereof, and methods for monitoring a television viewing system which includes a television and a video recorder/player and/or a cable converter, for obtaining information from the television viewing system relating to programs and/or other video received, tuned, recorded and/or displayed by the television viewing system and for obtaining information relating to the television system viewing audience.
In addition to (or in lieu of) antennas functioning traditionally as off-air video sources, many home television viewing systems now include a video recorder/player, for example, a video cassette recorder ("VCR") or a video cassette player ("VCP"), and/or a cable converter which also function as video sources for video displayed by the TV. Some home viewing systems include still other video sources such as a personal computer, video game, satellite antenna, etc. Due to widespread use of video recorder/players and an increase in the number and types of video sources, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor home television viewing systems for the purpose of obtaining information relating to programs viewed by the home audience at any given time. It is also difficult to obtain accurate information of the composition of the viewing audience at any given time. Such information may be collected to formulate ratings for television programs and to obtain information concerning the viewing audience for specific programs and commercials, among other possible uses.
To fully monitor a television viewing system for collecting information to be used, for example, in the formulation of program ratings, it is necessary to identify the channel tuned by each tuner in the system, i.e., the TV tuner, a video recorder/player, if one is present, and a cable converter tuner, if one is present, and to identify the source of the video ultimately displayed by the TV, i.e., an off-air antenna, a cable converter tuner, a video recorder/player tuner, the TV tuner, or a tape played back by the video recorder/player, or some other source such as a personal computer or video game.
Specifically, there is a need to provide video recorder/player monitoring including playback program identification in order: (a) to establish a total audience to a particular program or commercial, i.e., live viewing together with playback viewing; (b) to understand better the characteristics of playback in relation to recording--e.g., the proportion of programs of different types which having been recorded are in fact played back, the elapsed time between recording and playback, the characteristics of the viewing audience for a program in playback compared to live transmission; and (c) to establish the detailed method of playback particularly with reference to exposure to commercials in breaks preceding, during, or following a program being played back. From an advertiser's point of view, the addition of 10% to the audience to a program through playback is largely negated if, on most occasions, the fast forward or picture search facility of the video recorder/player are used to skip commercial breaks.
The invention disclosed herein seeks to monitor more fully than heretofore television viewing systems which may include different combinations of video equipment such as video recorder/players, cable converters, personal computers, etc. The invention also seeks to obtain information relating to the television viewing system, its video equipment and the video programs tuned, recorded, played back and/or displayed by the television viewing system, and information relating to the viewing audience, with more accuracy and/or more reliably and consistency than heretofore, or information which was not obtained at all heretofore.